The machining of complex components, in particular components of a vehicle body or even whole vehicle bodies is carried out in a known manufacturing plant (DE 197 13 860 A1) such that the components to be machined are transported by suitable transport means through a plurality of machining stations of a transfer line, where the machining is effected by laterally stationary machining robots. In the machining stations the components are held on a stationary component holder in a machining position. Such manufacturing plants take up a large amount of space.
In another known device for machining components (DE 101 53 807 A1) at least one component holder is disposed in a radially displaceable manner on a rotating support. Various machining stations such as grinding, drilling, milling and turning tools are disposed about the rotational axis of the support and below the support. With the rotatably driven support and the component holder, which is mounted in a radially displaceable manner on the support, the component held thereby can be brought to the individual machining stations. In order to be able to machine it at the machining stations, it must then still be lowered by the component holder to the individual tools disposed below the support.
A device of this type is arranged only for the machining of comparatively small components owing to the rotationally driven support for the component support and the tools disposed there under. The device is not suitable for larger components such as those of vehicle bodies, owing to the tools and supports being constructed one above the other.
A transport unit is known (U.S. Pat. No. 6,366,830 B2) for transporting components, in particular wafers, from a storage location to a machining station and back to the storage location or to another storage location, which transport unit consists of a two-armed rotor and a pivoting arm which is eccentrically mounted on each rotor arm and is mounted to rotate about an axis in parallel with the rotor axis, and of further gripper arms which can pivot on the free ends of the pivoting arms about an axis in parallel with the rotor axis. Pivotably mounted, driven grippers are disposed on these gripper arms. The rotational/pivoting drives of the rotor, pivoting arms and grippers are coordinated by a control unit in such a way that the grippers can reach different locations, in particular the storage locations and the machining stations of the wafer. The prior art does not mention whether the path followed by the wafer is formed so as to save space.
In the case of a device of the type mentioned in the introduction, which is well-known from practice, the transport and positioning unit is formed as a rotary table with at least one component support disposed in a stationary manner thereon at its periphery. When the rotary table rotates, the component holder is moved in a circle to the machining stations disposed outside this circle. A device of this type requires a large amount of space and can rarely be adapted to pre-existing spaces.